Thursday, November 8, 2007

A Letter Home

Well, another frustrating day.

I can’t believe it is November 8 already. This season is completely unlike my others here . . . sure, I had exceptionally good weather and few storms for those 2 seasons, but this is getting ridiculous. It is just storm after storm.

Last night we had sustained winds of 45 mph, with gusts to 60. There is so much snow everywhere it is ridiculous, when you enter a hut and close the door, it only takes a few minutes to have several inches (often much more) of snow outside.

This morning our lab hut door was completely invisible, there was snow up to the roof, and the other huts about 2/3 of the way up, so we spent the morning shoveling (yes Jonny, even more than when we used to shovel off the camp roof and jump down into the piles). Our windmill blew over and we found the propeller in pieces scattered all around.

When I left the outhouse last night to go to the sleeping hut, I seriously couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. It was a bit tough actually, tripping all over the different snow drifts and I couldn’t see anything at all, just went by memory back to the sleep hut. It is actually quite cool to experience it and really interesting to see how bad it can get here, but I’m ready for good weather now so we can get something done.

Here are a few pics, one of the guys trying to secure the wind power yesterday (Iwo Jima anyone?),

....and some from today. Here's Matt in the storm.

And the snow at our door,

Also included is a photo of our emperors mistaking a snowball for an egg . . . I’d never seen that before, but apparently Paul has seen it several times at some of the colonies.

Kathi and the Today Show crew are all trapped in town trying to leave (Kathi’s flight was supposed to leave on Monday, but of course all the flights have been cancelled), and Cass has been stuck in town for days as well while we are out here.

Kooyman, G.L., and Ponganis, P.J. 2004. The icing of external recorders during the polar winter. In Naito, Y. Bio-Logging Science. Memoirs of the National Institute of Polar Research, Special Issue No. 58: 183-187. National Institute of Polar Research. Tokyo.